Jews defend Rev. Hagee’s words

Jewish allies of the Rev. John Hagee rushed to his defense yesterday to say the Texas evangelist is not anti-Semitic despite Sen. John McCain campaign’s repudiation Thursday of the evangelist’s endorsement.

“John Hagee is one of the Jewish people’s best friends,” Los Angeles talk show host Dennis Prager said on the air yesterday morning. “Identifying John Hagee with anti-Semitism would be like identifying Raoul Wallenberg, the great Swede who saved thousands of Jews in the Holocaust, with anti-Semitism.”

Orthodox Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg, of Congregation Rodfei Sholom in San Antonio, appeared at an afternoon press conference yesterday to say Mr. Hagee’s “words were twisted and used to attack him for being anti-Semitic.”

In actuality, Mr. Hagee “interpreted a biblical verse in a way not very different from several legitimate Jewish authorities,” the rabbi said.

“Viewing Hitler as acting completely outside of God’s plan is to suggest that God was powerless to stop the Holocaust, a position quite unacceptable to any religious Jew or Christian,” the rabbi said.[snip]

At issue was Mr. Hagee’s reference — in a late 1990s sermon and in his 2006 book “Jerusalem Countdown” to Adolf Hitler being a “hunter” used by God to force Jews to emigrate to Israel.

In a reference to the Book of Jeremiah, whose author predicts a scattering of the Jewish people but saying God would bring them back to the promised land, Mr. Hagee says in the sermon: “How did [the Holocaust] happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.”

There is nothing wrong with Hagee’s Statement, many Jewish scholars believe the same thing. In fact, many believe that the Jewish people have brought all their tragedies upon themselves by breaking their Covenants with God.

McCain and the pundants where too quick to denounce Rev. Hagee with a knee jerk reaction to what the man said. He was not being anti-semetic, he was being a biblical scholar and thinker

One Comment on “Jews defend Rev. Hagee’s words”

In all that time his central theme has been:
Israel is God’s Chosen People,
all the promises of God made to the Jews are valid,
and there is no replacement theology change of God’s blessings and promises from Israel to Christians.

I do not know of anyone in the USA who has promoted the well being of Israel in the USA more than John Hagee.

To say differently makes statements or implications contrary to hundreds if not thousands of hours of preaching and teaching over the public airwaves John Hagee has spoken for many years.